A public hearing to determine whether 24 houses pose enough of a health hazard to warrant demolition will be held Feb. 28, city officials voted last week.
The board unanimously approved scheduling the hearing on Tuesday. But first it tossed aside an agenda item that would have made the nuisance declaration before the hearing, which would have been out of procedure.
“Before we declare them (a public nuisance), we have to have a public hearing,” city board attorney Marcus Williams said. “The (correct) process would be to do the hearing first and then after that, we’ll be able to do that.”
Williams said the homes could be declared public nuisances at the meeting if enough evidence for that was provided at the hearing.
While the city can declare the houses a public health menace and vote to demolish them, that work will only depend on whether funds allow.
The board also unanimously approved paying Tom Ellis Dozer Service out of McComb $5,000 after recently tearing down the property at 1030 Pearl River Ave. The city had already paid the $5,000 as tearing down the property was an emergency, but the payment was officially approved last week. The property briefly caused the corner of Pearl River Avenue and Locust Street to be closed.
Here’s a list of properties and their owners that will be discussed during the hearing:
• Thomasine Williams, Denwiddie Avenue.
• James Swanigan, 1004 Wall St.
• Thomasine Williams, 631 Dyson Drive.
• Aylene May, 521 Elmwood St.
• Silver Oaks Properties LLC, 711 New York Ave.
• Derrick Bennett, 504 24th St.
• Billy Stewart, 615 Pennsylvania Ave.
• Ricky Carver, 313 Kentucky Ave.
• Patricia White, 1008 Apache Drive
• Johnny Allen, 115 West Alley
• Dudley Thompson, 804 Live Oak St.
• Michael Lewis, 924 Avenue K.
• Rochell Thornton, 403 McComb St.
• Essie Harness, 201 Pine St.
• National Federal Mortgage, 120 Cherry St. N
• Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, 630 Pearl River Ave.
• Curtis Floyd/Tyesha Martin, 441 24th St.
• Gregory Patterson, 520 Fifth St.
• Oscar Beacham, 1120 Elmwood St.
• James Taylor, 408 Missouri Ave.
• Samantha Berkley, 319 Virginia Ave.
• Kalakeisha Mark, 529 Elmwood St.
